THE NURSE EDUCATOR BUYER’S GUIDE: HOW TO CHOOSE A SOLUTION
4 KEY COMPARISON POINTS TO SELECT THE PERFECT PARTNER FOR YOUR NURSING PROGRAM
How do you choose a partner for your nursing program? On the surface, nursing education companies can seem similar. But when you assess them on the criteria that mean the most to your program? That’s when you can more easily identify which company offers solutions that will fulfill your needs and which ones lack the resources you require.
LEARN MORE ABOUT ATI SOLUTIONS
While ATI takes pride in building and delivering solutions that are the most comprehensive in nursing education, we know you are interested in all the available options. To help you compare other company’s products to ours, then, we’ve created this checklist. Review it to determine which company offers the depth of quality and excellence of solutions your program needs so you’re confident in the partner you choose.
THE FUNDAMENTALS
Before comparing different products or solutions, examine whether your partner:
- Offers a single platform for accessing products and resources — one username, one password
- Provides recorded, virtual, and in-person training and support for their products
- Provides detailed, prescriptive guidance on solution and curriculum alignment
- Develops their reporting and predictive analytics from a pool of more than 215,000 nursing students.
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IN-DEPTH REVIEW
For a more in-depth comparison, use the check list below to thoroughly review another company’s offerings to ATI’s solutions to ensure your program’s needs are fulfilled.
1) CONSIDER STRENGTH OF ASSESSMENT RESOURCES
Do the other company’s offerings include:
- Criterion-referenced assessments aligned to the NCLEX blueprint
Criterion-referenced data provide examinees with the ability to compare their proficiency with a performance criterion (e.g., ATI proficiency levels). The criterion-referenced levels show a student’s performance directly compared to an established standard.
- Norm-referenced assessments aligned to the NCLEX blueprint
Norm-referenced data provide examinees and institutions with the ability to compare their score with others taking the exam nationwide (e.g., a mean and percentile rank). Using this data, faculty can assess how their students stack up against other cohorts across the nation.
- Next Gen NCLEX items incorporated into assessments in the same proportion as the NCLEX (~20-25% of the exam)
- Interactive/engaging tutorials to foster critical thinking
- Textbook-replacement solutions with course-level content and application exercises to increase students’ knowledge acquisition
- High numbers of question bank items (ATI has 9,000+) for developing formative/adaptive quizzes or customized proctored assessments
- High-quality knowledge and Next Gen NCLEX items developed according to a rigorous 12-step process and aligned to the NCME Standards for Educational & Psychological Testing
- Remediation tools customized to each student’s area(s) of weakness
- Real-time monitoring of student engagement of learning materials
- Assessment and remediation products that meet WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards
WCAG 2.1 is a standard for web content accessibility for those with visual, auditory, and cognitive disabilities.
2) CONSIDER TOOLS FOR FACULTY DEVELOPMENT
Do the other company’s offerings include:
- CNE-qualified content (live and on-demand) taught by nurse educators
- Resources and lesson plans for all learning situations: classroom, sim lab, clinical, and online
- Cutting-edge integration strategies for your classroom, sim lab, and more (live and on-demand)
- Progressive product training (live and on-demand)
- Consultation services with master’s and doctoral-level nurse educators.
Look for expertise in:
- Accreditation
- Simulation
- Program evaluation
- Teaching and learning
- Curriculum development (live and virtual).
- Products to manage all aspects of your program
Look for tools to manage your:
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3) CONSIDER HOW TO ASSESS STUDENTS’ NCLEX READINESS
Do the other company’s offerings include:
- Intensive student NCLEX-preparation programs (in-person and virtual)
- Predictive algorithms measuring students’ NCLEX readiness starting in Semester 1
- Reporting capabilities to:
- Easily access reports delivering data at all levels: student, cohort, and program
- Tag student results to major outcome categories including QSEN, the Clinical Judgment Measurement Model, the AACN Essentials, and more.
- Align with recommended KPIs and continual monitoring of student progress + alerts for at-risk students.
4) CONSIDER HOW TO DEVELOP PRACTICE-READY NURSES
Do the other company’s offerings include:
- Products that showcase the bedside nurse experience at three levels:
- Computer-based simulations in which students practice essential nursing skills before entering the lab
- Virtual scenarios that encourage critical thinking and clinical judgment that incorporate immediate remediation recommendations
- Simulations that create life-like conversations with clients to foster professionalism and effective communication.
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A lot of experience and expertise are necessary to prepare nursing students for the challenge of the Next Generation NCLEX — and to ensure they are practice-ready upon graduation. Choosing a partner with a team of 300+ master’s level and doctorate-prepared educators, plus a team of psychometricians trained to build cognitively complicated assessments, is one part of your decision-making process. Finding a company with those skills and a dedicated support team to answer your questions and provide additional resources takes that company to whole other level.
For answers to your specific questions about choosing a nursing education support partner, call (800) 667-7531or use ATI’s live chat feature during office hours.
